pad thai

… or as my mom likes to call it, “tad pie”

it took me a long time (like 6 years) to come up with a pad thai sauce recipe i like.

this recipe is not exactly traditional… i spent a lot of time trying to make tamarind a thing i can work with… and dude, it’s just NOT. this recipe was first made in anger (about all the failed pad thai recipes of the past) and just threw a bunch of things in a bowl. it actually turned out amazingly, and is all stuff i just have around! yay angry recipes!

ingredients:

banh pho rice noodles (1/2 package)
3 c chopped veggies (and meat, if you swing that way)… i use fake chicken onion, broccoli, cauliflower
1 c tofu. i like the pre-deepfried kind that is all chewy. nomnom.
a couple of handfuls of bean sprouts if you like, i usually replace this with spinach.

sauce:

1/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c soy sauce
1/2 c natural peanut butter
1/2 c tomato sauce
1/3 c sweet chili sauce
1 T white vinegar
2 T lime juice
1 T garlic (or less. i really like garlic.)
2 t sambal olek or other hot sauce (to taste)

to make:

mix all the sauce ingredients in a bowl. i totally encourage you to experiment… i use peanut butter because i like the sauce to be peanutty, but you could always leave it out and use crushed peanuts instead, which is a bit more traditional.

boil a big pot of water, and throw in the rice noodles. you want them cooked al dente…

stir fry your veggies and tofu. you know how you like them.

mix everything together in a big pot, and serve!